BILLINGS, Mont. -- The 24th-ranked Montana Tech women's cross country team laid to waste the field Wednesday afternoon, placing four in the top five to claim the program's first-ever Frontier Conference championship. With the victory, the Orediggers earned the league's automatic berth into the NAIA National Championship.

Alyssa Plant led the charge for the Orediggers, covering the 6k course at Billings' Amend Park in 22:33.5 to win the individual title for Tech. Kamryn Comba (second), Alyssa Jany (fourth), and Emily See (fifth) also logged top-five finishes to seal the runaway win. Makenzie Sheils finished 14th to round out the scoring.

Montana Tech collected 26 points to unseat four-time defending Frontier champion Carroll, which finished second with 47. The Orediggers, who had finished second twice in the past three seasons at the meet, claimed their first title in only the program's fifth year of existence.

Plant, a graduate student from Helena, earned her first collegiate cross country win with the conference title. She finished 14th for Montana Tech in the 2023 Frontier meet but has enjoyed a career season in 2024, a year that has included a pair of top-five finishes in Montana meets and a 20th-place result in the stacked NAIA Great Lakes Challenge last time out.

Now, for both Plant and the Oredigger team, that storybook season will continue with the program's first-ever NAIA National Championship berth. The national meet is set for Friday, Nov. 22 at Gans Creek Cross Country Course in Columbia, Mo.
 

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